How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 487

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Elias’s words have the power to make one want to believe in something they thought impossible their entire life. Eternity is the most empty of words. When even the universe has an end, how could eternity be possible? According to a sentence like a habit from Marcus Aurelius, whom I once clung to as a lifeline, no human is remembered for all generations. The fact that Aurelius’s Meditations is still read two thousand years later seems to refute that essay, and thus my hope fades, but when humanity ends, his diary will inevitably end as well. Eternity is merely a self-expressive claim about faith.

Though I’ve never voiced these thoughts at length, thinking this way would earn me a reputation for being pessimistic or full of complaints. Therefore, thoughts are always buried under proper words, and I too hope that I will do so. To me, who thinks pessimistically even by my own judgment, I don’t know why Elias’s appearance, guaranteeing that things won’t change, touched my heart so.

I looked at the stars embedded in the black sky beyond the slanted cornice of the temple. We quietly gazed at the garden from the temple open on all sides, occasionally exchanging questions and answers. I heard that unprecedented heavy rain fell on Rome. The forecast that said it would be clear for a while was wrong. Rome was soaked with water everywhere. It smells like the Tiber River. The servants walking through the garden, pushing through the short trees of Villa Borghese, said so. Since our being here was a secret, when young servants passed by, Elias held his breath, making me tense up as well. I couldn’t tell if it smelled like the river. It smelled like fresh wind. After all the servants had passed, in the midst of the grass scent, in the midst of water drops falling from the right-angled eaves of the Asclepius temple, in the middle of nighttime Rome, Elias smiled contentedly throughout. I nodded at Elias, who was grinning meaninglessly.

“So, what happened up until now?”

“It’s not far from what you know. Your reasoning was right again this time. We had to stop that old man from interfering with the Papacy anymore, so Narke went to handle it now.”

“Hmm.”

Thinking my reaction was lukewarm, Elias began to speak in more detail.

“Well… it’s as you heard. That old man thinks you’ll bring about the apocalypse. Because you have the ability to absorb all the information in the world. So we had a bit of an argument.”

“He thinks I’ll build the Tower of Babel.”

“Right. He thinks you’ll challenge God’s authority.”

Elias said that and fell silent. I said while taking off my boots to check the condition of my legs.

“I heard something breaking earlier.”

“Yeah.”

“That was the artifact that gave prophecies to the old men of Rome. I broke it.”

“Huh?!”

Even Elias seems quite flustered by this, his eyes wandering frantically. I said, recalling what the old man had told me.

“The Duke said that today I would come and take away the prophecy. Narke called that artifact ‘The Pythia of Delphi’ from Greece, but the privileged old men probably regarded it as a Christian artifact that conveyed Jehovah’s will. In other words, it would be fair to call it prophecy rather than oracle. Since I broke the artifact, I really did take away the prophecy in the end.”

The thought crossed my mind that Elias might have defended me thinking I was innocent. Since the old man’s words seemed partially true, my position was different. However, Elias was still looking at me with the same unchanged expression, so I dropped the thought. Instead, there was something I needed to say in advance about his faith.

“No matter how unreasonable it might be, what would you do if it really happened?”

“What would I do if the world really ended because of you?”

Elias understood my words exactly. I nodded. Elias answered without any hesitation.

“That Duke misinterpreted the prophecy. Someone who knows or can know the world before Babel… whether that metaphorical expression is true or not, I don’t know. But I think the person building the Tower of Babel was that old man. The one who invaded God’s domain by distinguishing humans into non-human beings and beings who can remain human wasn’t you, but the Duke. No one has the right to make humans non-human. No, even God cannot classify humans.”

“Did he say I wasn’t human?”

“Yes. He said that because your abilities aren’t human, you can’t be human.”

Elias spoke while pressing down his voice. He swallowed hard and frowned.

“We live in an era that yearns to become higher humans by dehumanizing others. Because we casually cut off the lower ranks of humanity, any human can be put on the death list if they deviate even slightly from the standard. So… perhaps the homeland I love and hate might be the vanguard of making humans into non-humans.”

He’s probably talking about the powerful German nationalism that currently supports the German Empire and will later support the Third Reich—the Nazis. The precursors to the Nazis existed from the Second German Empire period. While it can’t be said to be completely identical in this world’s era, it’s true that they follow the same trajectory to some extent. As if Elias had prophesied the future, I unconsciously turned my gaze away, and Elias truly ‘began.’ He passionately delivered the monologue I had only read in books directly in front of me.

“And just as Europeans have long dehumanized Jews to restore ethnic pride, such behavior has always existed regardless of country or era. The moment we pass it off as someone else’s problem, saying only one particular nation and era is the problem, dehumanizing ideology will rise anytime, and then everyone will smoothly perish!”

“Did you go into my head and come back out?”

“Realistically speaking, you could say that…”

“I see…”

“But this is what I’ve always been thinking!”

“I want to write it in my notes.”

“You don’t need to write it down.”

Elias brought my mind back to reality with a nonchalant expression. Strange. I dry-washed my face feeling like I’d been hit in the head. Elias still had his eyes narrowed triangularly, filled with anger, waving his hands as he spoke.

“But here’s the problem. The moment people sell their humanity to such ideology and gain shallow pride while failing to realize they’re doing so, it takes root in other areas of their minds, so workers mentally unite with the bourgeoisie, the poor think they became poor because they’re lazy and stupid, and the rich believe they became rich because they’re diligent and quick-thinking. In the same way, Humans come to believe they’re lesser beings than Espers. How easily would such a mindset that casually destroys even oneself turn toward others? Could someone like the Duke, who argues that a stranger like you must be killed, be unrelated to such problems? Is that old man’s fanatical decision completely unrelated to the trend of treating human lives lighter than feathers based on arbitrary judgment standards?”

I nodded enthusiastically at whatever Elias said, pleased with his speech. However, unlike me who expected him to ramble longer, he had no intention of speaking at length, so he quietly stared at the pond and bushes with sharp eyes, stayed still, then quietly concluded.

“That old man couldn’t convince me of what exactly would be ruined and how. So, if humanity’s survival can only be achieved by dehumanizing humans, I don’t want it. If America needs slavery to function, I’d rather America perish. Rather than executing the ridiculous scheme of nobles who write absurd encouragement poems to boost serfs’ morale because serfs are needed to maintain manors, it’s better for feudalism to disappear. It’s fortunate it’s gone now. Similarly, if Europe can only survive by having colonies, it would be better for Europe to disappear from Earth. If the poor must leave their residences for Penthalon to be held, such false entertainment would be better off never existing. If we must listen to the crazy old man who says we should easily kill others different from us to keep surviving, this isn’t my world. Whatever happens. So even if the world truly ends because I saved you, I’m not afraid.”

Now the answer to my question came. At his words about faith and changing the world, I fell silent, and Elias answered that silence again.

“The world is fabric. It might seem fine if a thread or two comes loose, but if everyone becomes complacent and the loose threads increase one by one, wouldn’t it eventually become a mass that can’t be called fabric? If I don’t respect the person in front of me, I have no justice either.”

Elias lay down on the floor. I looked down at Elias silently. Elias snapped his fingers, bursting with magic power as he spoke.

“Even in a world that divides humans into those who deserve to live and those who deserve to die, let’s not despair. I’ll light a new fire and spread it. I’ll have to fix the loose threads even if I have to burn them.”

“Does it work that way?”

He laughed at my words. Then he said with narrowed eyes.

“I’m probably not cut out to be a monarch, am I? A friend like Leo is truly monarch material.”

When I just looked down at him without any reaction, Elias fell into thought and wiggled his fingers.

“In my opinion, Leo is more suitable than even Julia. Julia is more connected to tradition. Even though she acknowledges the changing times for our sake and encourages us when we’re frustrated, that cool-headed yet thoughtful friend’s foundation lies in tradition. Ah, talking like this makes me miss Julia.”

Adult Julia was half a step away from them. There’s a reason why in the novel, after graduating school, she didn’t move together with Leo and Elias. But there’s also a reason why she’s close to both. Now that they’ve become the same team, the situation has changed, but originally they were, at least after they became adults, friends who cheered each other on from afar rather than being together every day.

“Utilitarianism doesn’t suit my taste. I intend to approach with the determination to save not the maximum number of people, but each and every person, everyone. I know there are many times when I can’t do that. I know I’ll end up thinking in utilitarian terms. Therefore, I know that the most rational and reasonable monarch shouldn’t ignore utilitarian principles. I too, if placed in a critical situation where I must make a decision, would naturally choose without a moment’s hesitation the option that kills fewer people, but before that, I want to believe that the option to save everyone is in my hands. So paradoxically, I’ll choose the option where everyone dies.”

Elias muttered while staring blankly into midair.

“As you know, faith changes many things.”

I nodded. Then Elias quickly moved his eyes to me and said.

“But our team’s utilitarian would have naturally chosen you in this situation too. Even if it were really right before destruction, I think he would.”

“I wonder. By then his thinking would have changed.”

“It’s not ‘I wonder.’ He’s changed a bit.”

“Hmm, he changed early.”

“Is that so? I thought he’d never change in his lifetime.”

Elias scratches his neck. Having read about their ten years later and Elias who’s still stuck at 18 are showing different impressions about Leo. The 18-year-old Elias and 28-year-old Elias are the same but different, and Leo is the same way.

Thinking that far, I felt the back of my neck grow cold. Right, Leo, when the Duke attacked, did Leo notice something was wrong? I hurriedly looked around and said.

“We need to contact Leo. I can’t even predict what he’s doing right now…”

“Why?”

Elias asks with wide eyes. I pondered what to answer and replied truthfully within reasonable limits.

“We were in a somewhat dangerous situation. He’s obviously going to be furious.”

“That’s true. Leo’s scary expression~”

Elias acts cheeky. Elias, who had been rolling around holding both arms, turned to lie facing the bushes and put ants that were passing by on his hand. When an ant tried to go into his sleeve, he pursed his lips and blew wind to throw the ant back to the dirt. I watched such Elias and asked.

“When is Narke coming? Can we keep staying here?”

“We can’t leave! If the Duke sees you, he’ll try to devour you. If we leave now, the situation will get more tangled.”

“That’s true. So what about Narke? Is everything okay right now?”

“I wonder. Can he fight alone? His condition definitely hasn’t been very good all along, so I don’t know how he plans to face the Duke alone.”

Face him alone? I was shocked, then thought of Narke’s usual behavior and shook my head.

“There must be some method he didn’t tell us about. Is it a method possible because we’re in Rome? Why in Munich-Freising…”

“Well, it would be fortunate if he returns healthy anyway.”

Elias suddenly got up and climbed onto a small boat floating on the pond. The boat rocked as if it would capsize, then when Elias, who was standing on the boat like surfing a board, regained his balance, it slowly became calm. Elias looked at me and asked.

“There aren’t any Atropos in this water, right?”

“It’s noble private property, so there shouldn’t be. Unless the Borghese family members are from Pleroma.”

“Ugh.”

I approached closer to the pond and carefully let divine power flow in. Then Elias clapped his hands. I climbed onto the Borghese’s small boat that he was using without permission, sat facing him, and said.

“It’s been a day since we departed like this. We should be able to arrive in Bavaria tomorrow morning, right?”

“Ah~ what a shame. How can we go back in just one day? You should come to Italy for a long vacation!”

“Right, that’s true, but thinking about going back is driving me crazy…”

We have to do exactly what we did to get here. Elias’s eyes lit up as if he’d forgotten how he panicked during the process of illegally entering Switzerland from Raihenau Island.

“Let’s race in the waterway again!”

“No!”

“Why!”

Elias grabs the side of the boat and twists his body left and right. The boat rocked as if it would soon capsize, so I almost hit Elias’s arm with the oar but answered with my expression instead, calming him down. Elias just giggled. I looked at the sky and said.

“When we go back, I need to study Theravada Buddhism, negotiate with Ainsiedel again, purify Atropos, extract divine power… and appease Leo well too.”

“Is surprising him a bit something that needs appeasing? If you stay still, he’ll sigh and help with everything!”

“That’s true, but I feel bad about making him sigh.”

“You don’t need to feel bad. How are you going to appease him?”

I closed my eyes at those words, pondered, then answered.

“With a letter?”

“A letter? I want to read it too!”

“No. That’s only for Leo to see.”

“Aw.”

Elias made a strange sound and drooped his shoulders. Just as I was about to find it absurd and ask what he was doing, Elias quickly returned to a mature face and said politely.

“It’s okay if I don’t read the letter.”

“Why?”

“If I said it wasn’t okay, would you show it to me?”

“No.”

“See! I don’t want to covet even the territory Leo occupies within you. We’re intimate in different areas from each other, so reading that would be a bit much.”

“Just suddenly becoming so mature like this….”

It’s not like this is the first or second time Elias has shown this side, but I feel embarrassed every time. Elias laughed, not caring about my assessment.

“Hahaha! Just like I can’t replace Leo’s position with you, Luca, and can’t substitute your position with Leo, and just like I can’t replace Julia’s position with Leo or Leo’s position with Julia, it’s the same for you. You can’t replace your relationship with Leo with me.”

He hit the right answer. I smiled at Elias’s hearty laughter and muttered to myself.

“That’s what I should be saying.”

As for how much Leo means to Elias, I can’t rashly answer. The ten years’ worth of monologues I read wouldn’t have all grown within them yet, but even now they would share more love than I could imagine. Even if their affection for each other becomes as familiar as air, like dealing with siblings who will always be by their side, and they don’t greatly perceive the affection they give and receive. Though there’s nothing as meaningless as weighing the importance of friendship, the two would be essential to each other. I read in the monologues of both Elias and Leo in their mid-twenties that they had never imagined the 19th and 20th centuries without each other, and though it’s hard to imagine from their current appearance—sorry to say—thinking about it now, it was quite shocking.

However, this way was rather healthier. To be honest, I hope they don’t keenly feel their friendship for each other. I hope they continue to regard it as familiar as air, just like now. I hope they treat each other bluntly, actually fight sometimes, find each other annoying, and regard each other as present or absent like now. From their mid-to-late teens through their late twenties, they realized how close they felt to each other only when they felt each other’s absence, and that absence always came from events and pain that isolated them both. I didn’t want to watch that with my own eyes.

Elias only raised his eyebrows at my words, then asked about a curiosity that suddenly occurred to him.

“Why are you friends with Leo? He’s always being stubborn.”

“…When you listen to him, everything he says is right.”

“That’s true! It’s frustrating.”

What is he saying…. I chuckled and asked.

“What about you?”

“Why I’m friends with him?”

I nodded. While doing so, I looked around to see if Narke had arrived. I thought he would take some time or deflect with meaningless words, but Elias answered immediately.

“He’s the type of human you can’t help but love. Even though he’s sometimes a bit annoying, that friend knows how to give back to the world the love he receives. He knows better than anyone that the love he receives isn’t taken for granted, knows how to be purely moved, and tries to become a human worthy of love. Of course, it’s not always successful, but well, that friend grows as much as he tries.”

Elias spoke as if he had thought about it for a long time. I was inwardly surprised and twitched my eyebrows. Even without going ten years into the future, they were similar even at this time. Elias spoke with a dreamy face as if thinking of a future he couldn’t become.

“What I find unfamiliar, that kid does without any trouble.”

The reason his impression and mine match so surprisingly is probably because Elias and I fundamentally share a lot. I rested my chin on my hand and nodded. Elias scooped up pond water with his hand and said.

“But what does all this mean. We didn’t become friends because of this, but after becoming friends, we found out he was this kind of guy and got closer and closer. Anyway, seeing that I became friends with this kind of guy from childhood, I’m lucky….”

More than ten years ago, Elias took the hand extended by the Prince of Bavaria, who was the only one among his peers who had started treating him like air at some point, but still treated him like a person and talked to him. A child who could persist in what he thought was right despite the Emperor’s sanctions couldn’t be such a bad-natured human. The fortune of gaining a good friend followed because Elias’s family environment was miserable. So while I couldn’t completely agree, expressing it as fortune instead of lamenting his situation was just like him. I quietly asked.

“What about with Narke?”

“It’s a relationship where I look forward to the future. We’ll reminisce about today ten years from now. We’re in the middle of memories. How wonderful.”

Elias said while scattering water into the air. I was about to curse at the splashing water but just smiled and nodded.

“I agree. Both of them are like that for me too.”

“Right? We’re lucky!”

Elias scattered water into the sky once again. I sighed and avoided the rain.

After waiting for Narke for about ten minutes like that, someone appeared in the middle of the temple. Elias jumped up from the boat.

“Narke!”

Narke was standing there dazedly, leaning on his staff. He was looking at us with only a mechanical smile. I hurriedly got off the boat and approached him.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course.”

Indeed, the magical waves I felt from him were normal. I checked his status window, but all the numbers were the same. Narke put away his staff and approached the pond. While he wiped the blood off his clothes, Elias asked urgently.

“What happened? Is it all over?”

“Yes.”

How. Before I could ask, Narke spoke in a firm voice.

“I’ll explain about that person when we return home. We need to leave Italy quickly now. Let’s at least avoid the Papal States. We can’t stay here any longer.”

I carefully asked at those words.

“You used to go in and out of the Papacy before.”

“It’s a bit difficult now. Many things have gone wrong.”

Gone wrong, the same words again. I furrowed my brow. Narke grabbed my hand and grabbed Elias with his other hand. Elias bent down and hurriedly put clothes in his bag and stood in a circle.

At that moment, I saw a white dove frantically wandering around the other side of the Borghese gardens. It was struggling in front of the barrier. I couldn’t tell what that had to do with us, but Narke had a disturbingly fierce expression. Then he quickly opened his eyes wide. Narke immediately grabbed our hands and moved to the nearby Popolo Plaza, and only then did the messenger bird circle above Narke’s head. Elias and I opened our mouths in surprise at the same time.

“What.”

“Was that messenger bird coming to us?”

If the messenger bird arrived targeting Narke, it means someone had taught the dove Narke’s magic. Who? Obviously an Italian who had put Narke’s magic into the messenger bird communication magic palette. However, after checking the contents, Narke just burst into hearty laughter. Elias and I opened our eyes wide and looked at each other. Narke asked Elias with the same laughing face.

“Elias, do you have paper and a pen?”

“No?!”

“Haha. Lucas, do you?”

“I do.”

I took out my notebook and pen and gave them to Narke. Narke tore the paper lengthwise and wrote something, tied it to the dove’s leg and sent it flying. Even after that, he continued looking at the sky waiting for a reply. Elias grabbed one of his shoulders and asked.

“What was that? What did you write?”

“Hm? The warp coordinates here~”

Narke laughed playfully. Warp coordinates? We looked at him suspiciously, but since there was nothing else to do, we silently waited for the messenger bird to come. While thinking about why he was being so carefree when he said we needed to leave quickly.

However, what greeted us wasn’t the returning messenger bird. Not long after, people appeared at the plaza’s warp point. Elias and I, who turned our heads at the noise, opened our mouths. Absurdity dominated our minds.

Speak of the devil and he appears. A familiar face was approaching with guards, dressed in Bavaria’s royal formal wear. Leo, wearing the smile he usually wore when attending official events, cast a sound-blocking spell and stood in front of us, asking casually.

“Why.”

“….”

“Can’t I come?”

The kind expression and blunt tone didn’t match, making me want to laugh, but I had to hold it in. What on earth happened on that side in just one day that made the Bavarian royal family come to Rome? I had no idea about that, but to answer Leo’s question first, I shook my head. Elias leaned toward me, cupped his hand to his ear and whispered.

“We were just talking about him for once.”

I had no choice but to nod.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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